The Loire Valley comes to the heart of London

Loire Valley Rosé Wine Barbecue Pairings:

This summer has been unbelievably wonderfully warm, and London has been revelling in the heat with everyone trying to find places to eat and drink outside. We were able to combine these pleasures at a rosé wine barbecue dinner at Jimmy’s BBQ Club on the Southbank hosted by Loire Valley wines. You really couldn’t ask for a better place to be on a hot evening, than sitting above the crowds on the bank of the Thames.

Jimmy’s BBQ club is a pop-up for the summer and is great fun. Each table of 6 has its own Big Green Egg BBQ which you cook your food on, under the instruction and supervision of the staff. They’ve done all the hard work; all the plates are ready garnished and all the food marinated – all you have to do is cook it for the correct time. Cooking together like this encourages the tables to socialise, a perfect example of food breaking down barriers.

We started our meal by cooking miso glazed charred baby aubergines served with pomegranate molasses, yoghurt, chilli and mint. This was my favourite dish and something that I’ll try to reproduce at home.

This dish was accompanied by a Rosé d’Anjou, Caves de la Loire 2012. The vintage was something of a surprise, as we normally expect rosé to be fresh and young. The ageing of this wine gave it some tannin, adding in peaches and honey. Pairing with the chilli in the dish took away the slight sweetness of the wine and worked really well. Kate encouraged us to think of this wine as one for any season, maybe even to pair with the Christmas turkey!

The second course was monkfish served with a roast red pepper puree, black garlic, jamón, and smoked almonds. The jamón was very salty and was perfectly offset by the Cabernet d’Anjou, Lecointre, 2017. On its own, this wine was a very typical Loire rosé, heavy with strawberries which balanced beautifully with the food.

Our third course was charred squid, which came with green olive and avocado guacamole, lime and rocket oil. Squid is notoriously difficult to get right, the smallest amount of over-cooking can turn it to rubber, but a matter of minutes on the Big Green Egg and it was perfect. This was served with a free-run wine, which means that the grapes haven’t been pressed, they are instead crushed under their own weight and gently rotated to extract the juice. This means that the wine needs very little refining. The wine was a Rosé d’Anjou, Domaine des Essarts, 2017. It was a light wine, with strawberries coming through. I found this one too sweet for my taste.

The next course was a lamb kebab, served with tzatziki, pomegranate tabbouleh and mint oil. This was the only dish that I thought needed longer to cook than our instructions. I’m guessing it might have been the vegetables on the kebab making the meat need longer (and I do like my lamb pink). Our wine came from Ackermann, founded in 1811 and was a Rosé d’Anjou 2016. I’d never normally think to pair a rosé with lamb it was great to see how versatile the wines can be. The perfect rosé wine for a barbecue…

We finished off our meal with griddled apricots served on a bed on honey mascarpone, candied orange peel and ginger biscuit crumbs. I’m not normally much of a pudding fan, but this was fabulous and a great dish for the barbecue. It was accompanied by a Rosé d’Anjou, Famille Bougrier, 2017 which was just a really fresh wine, perfect with the apricots.

It was great to discover how rosé wines paired so well with our barbecue dinner and it’s certainly something I’ll be adding to my own barbecue wine list this summer.

Just in case you are looking to stock up yourself, here’s the wine list we tried

About Sarah James

Sarah works full time in the NHS as a serious education and organisation development director. When she lets her hair down it’s to indie bands, preferably live, as she seeks to retain her rock chic status. Sarah makes a mean cocktail and loves trying out new food and drink recipes. Out and about she’s often found sipping champagne, fuelling her curry addiction, and enjoying fine dining. Sarah loves exploring both in the UK and abroad, especially places that are off the beaten track, and/or offer fantastic local food and drink.

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